SuperCam tagged posts

Perseverance confirmed a long-suspected phenomenon in which electrical discharges and their associated shock waves can be born within Red Planet mini-twisters.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has recorded the sounds of electrical discharges —sparks — and mini-sonic booms in dust devils on Mars. Long theorized, the phenomenon has now been confirmed through audio and electromagnetic recordings captured by the rover’s SuperCam microphone. The discovery, published Nov. 26 in the journal Nature, has implications for Martian atmospheric chemistry, climate, and habitability, and could help inform the design of future robotic and human missions to Mars.

A frequent occurrence on the Red Planet, dust devils form from rising and rotating columns of warm air...

For two decades, Roger Wiens has built instruments to give humans eyes and a nose on Mars — and now he’s helping add ears as well...

A selfie of the NASA Curiosity rover at the Murray Buttes in Gale Crater, Mars, a location where boron was found in light-toned calcium sulfate veins. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Boron compounds play role in stabilizing sugars needed to make RNA, a key to life. The discovery of boron on Mars gives scientists more clues about whether life could have ever existed on the planet, according to a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “Because borates may play an important role in making RNA – one of the building blocks of life – finding boron on Mars further opens the possibility that life could have once arisen on the planet,” said Patrick Gasda, a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory...